Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-04-04
CHICAGO.
Gas Men Will Not Accent
Lower Wages.
A MEETING OF THE wORKMRN-
Carpenters Renewing the Struggle
For an increase in Salary
and Less Hours.

and Less Hours.
Associated Press DISPATCHES to the HERAxD
CHICAGO, April 3.-The Consumer
Gas Light and Coke Company bss neti-
fed its 500 employees that they must
submit to a reduction Of fifty and twenty
cents per day. threatening, 1t is said, to
use coal oil unless the men comply.
The officials of the company claim to b
able to make = fair profit when paying
the present wages of $3.50 and -
for an eight hour day. They
wish the men to work twelve
hours per day at an advance of so and
40 cents. The use of coal as fuel would
dispense with 450 Of 500 employees.
This afteraoon the men who are mem.
bers of the Knights of Labor assemblies
7448 and 6755 met and determined 70
insist upon the present scale Of hours
and pay. A committee was appointed
to inform the company of the result of
the meeting.
Six thousand five hundred carr enters
employed by the various contractors and
shop-owners throughout the city end
suburbs will cease work tomorrow
morning. and the building operations Of
this county will be suspended indefinite.
ly. The leaders Of the carpenters, Who
have had a long struggle for
their demand of eight hours work
and an incr' ase of wages, decided
then to renew the contest and think that
now when the building enterprise il
reviving and carpenters are wanted the
time has arrived to make employe, yield.
Three months ago the Council gave NO.
tice to employees that at the beginning Of
April The men would demand thirty. tives
cents an hour, eight hours to constitute
days work. Wages have been aver
aging twenty-five cents and hours have
varied between eight and ten.
The conference to arrange . settle
ment was formally requested from em-
ployers but the master carpenters have,
to all appearances, studiously ignored
the whole movement. To-day mass
meeting of carpenters was held in
Battery SD" Armory to discuss the ad-
visibility of general strike. Over
5000 men were present. Wm. Kliver
President of the Chicago Trades Assem-
bly, presided. 1t was q secret meeting,
every man of the 5000 having to present
his carpenters trade card in order to
gain admission. President Kliver made
a long speech, reviewing the situation;
that the carp nters were the most
abused men in the building trades;
they were paid the lowest
wages, while their work was -
hard and indispensable as that Of
the brick layers and masons who earned
almost double as much year ago. The
carpenters strike was failure simply
because their organization was weak in
numbers and totally lacked funds. Now
they were strong and should right their
wrongs. After similar speech
in German a resolution that all
work cease tomorrow unless the
demand was granted was read.
Then arose w. H. Riley, mem-
Der of the Knights of Labor, District
Assembly "a, Of which Robert Nelson.
the United Labor candidate for Mayor,
is the Master Workman. Riley, in .
rafting speech for resolution, boldly
told the 5000 men listening that tho
victory at the polls for the labor
ticket meant also victory for the
carpenters, and urged them to s'do
their duty" He was enthusiastically
applauded. Editor Albert Curtin, Aug
ust Spies successor as editor Of the
Arbeiter Zeitung, was the next speaker.
The gist of Curlin's speech was that the
oo,,,ark koru xx,ara foolioh tbau did nne
strike when they had such chance.
His German hearers he said, address,
ing them in their native language
should do everything in their power to
defeat Roche, the servant of the capital
lists and the tool of the temperance
cranks. The English speaking portion
of the audience began to grow restive
while Curlin was speaking in German,
and cut him shert with jeers aud cat
calls, though the Germans applauded
vigorously.
At this moment Paul Grattkan, the
Milwaukee Socialist, appeared at the
entrance to the hall and applied for adj
mission. He showed an invitation from
the Germans Union to address the
meeting. When his presence was
made known to the meeting
storm of objections arose, the
English.speakiug element emphatically
protesting against any words from him.
The Germans seemed outraged, but de.
cided to avoid discord and Grattkan
smilingly acquiesced. They were sootbed
with speech from Secretary Brennock
and French Canadian named Beaudry.
A motion to strike was then put and
carried unanimously, with three cheers
for Nelson and the eight.hour movement.
The meeting adjourned, the men under
standing that none of them are to re-
sumo work until all the employers have
given in or the strike as a whole is do
clared failure.